


Chez Nous

by dragonlisette



Category: Phandom/The Fantastic Foursome (YouTube RPF)
Genre: 2010, Angst, Anxiety, Established Relationship, Fluff, Hurt/Comfort, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-12-29
Updated: 2014-12-29
Packaged: 2018-12-03 21:07:55
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,214
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11540460
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/dragonlisette/pseuds/dragonlisette
Summary: He supposed he was luckier than most, what with a boyfriend halfway across town, but that didn’t make much of a difference when he was alone at midnight in a barren prison cell room. Yeah, there was laughter and Madonna down the hall, and Call of Duty explosions next door, but it felt like he was the only person left in the world.





	Chez Nous

**Author's Note:**

> [originally posted on tumblr.](http://cityofphanchester.tumblr.com/post/106579620780/chez-nous)

Dan hated law.

He didn’t like expressing opinions, really, preferred bland, “yeah, I’m fine, uni’s fine, yup, I’m gonna be a lawyer,” when talking to extended family, and “boring as hell at the moment but it’ll get better,” with old high school friends checking up on him on Facebook. Meaningless smiles and quick subject changes, but the honest-to-god truth was that he hated it. Hated it with a burning, nauseating passion. Wars and taxes and murder made endlessly difficult and boring; the worst mistake he’d ever made.

The other problem with uni was how  _lonely_  it was. He supposed he was luckier than most, what with a boyfriend halfway across town, but that didn’t make much of a difference when he was alone at midnight in a barren prison cell room. Yeah, there was laughter and Madonna down the hall, and Call of Duty explosions next door, but it felt like he was the only person left in the world. Just him and the hum of his laptop and the hum of the radiator and the hum of the city.

The deal for the night, he told himself as he closed his Twitter tabs and pushed his laptop back across the crowded desk, was to read the assigned reading over and go through his notes until he either fell asleep or memorized the concepts. He’d start the paper Saturday, there was no way he’d be able to write it tonight and have it be coherent at all. Or he was just procrastinating as usual. Either way.

He was already sitting at his desk, so he stood up, took a couple steps back, and went to sit down again, hopefully forcing his brain into accepting the fresh beginning. His stomach still twisted itself into a miserable knot when he surveyed the scrawled Post-it notes of  _dan’s work lol fantastic_ , so he sucked in a cleansing breath and dove in before he could back out, running his fingertips absently back and forth across the rough page edges of the open book. His eyes swept the pages quickly, smoothly, efficiently, until after a while he realized he wasn’t paying attention at all, ice-skating down the lines with zero comprehension, and suddenly his heart was in his throat because he knew he’d seen that term, and he had no idea what it meant, and he had to flip back to the glossary, and the definition was so confusing he had to look up the definition of a word in it, and it was already nearly midnight. The little click of his phone’s lock button was almost the only sound in the metaphorical void of his lonely room. (23:45. It had been ten o’clock in the morning about four seconds ago, hadn’t it?) He tossed the phone across onto the bed and watched it bounce into the messy duvet, because there was no room for distractions, not this late in the game. And then he sucked in a breath that was less cleansing than badly shaky, and went back to trying to understand – just one page, please, just a page – and he was trying  _so hard_ , and he was going to end up an utter failure.

He wasn’t sure when the tears started creeping up. It wasn’t that he couldn’t do the work, it was that he was so far behind, and it was his fault for putting it all off, and he wanted to stop, calm down, but then he’d be even farther behind. He buried his face in the crook of his elbow for a second, the cloth of his hoodie sleeve, trying to will himself down to perfect glassy calm. It was too late. Too much. The swimming words wouldn’t have made sense even if he’d managed to keep his eyes from flickering around the page, tripping and stumbling drunkenly from line to line. His brain was flooding with nonsense static, chest tightening, breath quickening, throat and eyes crowding with tears. His hands were twisting together, fingernails skating along the skin, not enough pain to register properly.

And then he dropped the notebook he’d been clutching in a strangling grip and gave up.  _Failure_ , something was screaming behind his ears,  _failure_ , but he couldn’t do, couldn’t even force himself to try anymore. A stupid tiny little hot tear was trying to make its way down his nose, but he slapped it away.  _Control yourself_ , something bitter inside him hissed, disapproving and disappointed and angry. He was half-heartedly angry at himself, but mostly just miserable; all he could do was fall onto the cold and unfamiliar bed, helpless and hopeless, and miss his bed at home and his brown bedroom and familiarity and company. The thought of getting up again, trying to work again, sent a jolt of sickening fear through him, but the thought of staying and falling farther behind him scared him almost as badly. He wanted home. Or Phil’s, or a mall in Florida, or Mars, just not here. Anything but here. And nope, fuck it, he was crying, gasping, curling himself into a ball in the tangled blankets and clamping his hand over his mouth, trying to keep himself from dissolving away into ragged sobs. His brain felt crammed with thoughts, pressing at his temples, but he couldn’t isolate any of them to actually consider. He was suffocating on the painful tightness in his throat, drowning in the burning tears sliding down his face, and who’d invented this university thing anyway, and why did  _he_  have to be here? He squeezed his eyes shut, pressed his hand tighter against his mouth and shook with the waves of terror and misery slamming at him, taking each blow with another ragged, desperate gasp for air. He couldn’t take it, and yet he had to, because there was no alternative.

He guessed it had been a while when the sobs had stopped racking his body and he had the strength to sit up. He considered calling Phil. The prideful part of him told him no, to keep it all to himself and win the bitter, sickening heroism award, but the part of him that was figuring out how to be proper-happy, the part of him that was working out the jigsaw puzzle, that part said yes. It’s okay. Wash your face and eat the Maltesers and wear the duvet like a cape and call your best friend. He felt annoying, a guilty annoying burden, when he was digging his phone out of the mess of duvet, but he tried to stop himself. Phil had assured him so many times that it was totally fine. He could practically visualize him, nearly begging Dan to ask for help when he needed it. The time in particular had been, oh, late September, and Dan had been over and freaking out because he’d just sort of realized what he’d gotten himself into, and he’d been flopped across Phil’s bed in a wide-eyed hair-raking frenzy, and Phil had pulled him over so his head was in Phil’s lap, looking down so Dan was seeing his face upside-down, and asked him, pleaded with him,  _just talk to someone if you need to, god, Dan, I’m always here, and if you don’t want me, just call your mum or someone_ , and Dan sighed loudly and unlocked his phone. He’d stopped crying, a veritable miracle, but he was sniffling now and he kept wiping his face on his sleeve and cringing at himself. Okay. He’d call Phil, just for something nice, just something to distract him long enough so he could just go to sleep.

“Hello,” he said to the empty room, testing his voice, and it was weak and teary and horrible, and he winced and opened messages instead.

**00:28**   _plz phil i cant do it_

He curled himself back up into a ball because he was cold, and hugged his phone to his chest so he would feel the second it vibrated. He was dizzyingly tired now, a sniffling miserable mess. And his head was going in circles. Maybe Phil wasn’t awake, but it was only midnight, and he just wanted something sweet and encouraging, maybe with a stupid caret-underscore-caret face, or a colon-square bracket face, and please please please a little less-than-three to put a faint warmth in his sore heart. He hugged the phone a little tighter, and wanted his bear. He’d left it at home because he was an “adult,” and fucking-hell if he didn’t want it right now. Christmas, he’d get it at Christmas, but that was far too far away.

His phone rang against his chest, the vibrations shivering down his ribs, and he fumbled with it in confusion, lifting it to his swollen eyes.  _Phil Lester is calling_. Oh. He didn’t want to answer, not when his voice was going to crack everywhere, but he wanted to hear Phil’s voice, and oh – oh, whatever. He’d answer.

“Hi?” he asked, his voice very small. He coughed, hoping to hide the shakiness, and guessed it wouldn’t work.

“Dan,” and Phil’s voice was so welcome, and Dan could hear worry and care even in the monosyllable. “Dan, are you okay?”

“Yeah, yeah, m’alright, sorry, I didn’t want – ” He stuttered his way to a stop, floundering for words. He wished Phil would interrupt him. “I don’t want you to worry. I’m okay, just stressed, you know me.”

“You should sleep,” Phil offered. “Or eat something, have you eaten anything today? And try not to stress, it’ll be okay – oh, Dan, I’m not very good at this, I just want to hug you.”

Dan managed a sniffly laugh. “S’okay, you’re good.” He rolled onto his back and stared up at the beige plaster ceiling, almost leaning into the phone.

“Love you,” Phil said softly, and then, “but really, have you eaten today? They must have a toaster or something around. And it’s late, you need to sleep, I know how late you stay up half the time.”

“Yes, mum.” He was able to inject a note of teasing in his otherwise forlorn voice, and was proud of himself for it. “Really, ‘s better now you’re talking to me.” And it was, kind of. He’d been right that a distraction was what he needed.

He could hear Phil laugh bashfully. “I don’t have anything to tell you about, but I’ll stay as late as you want, it’s not a problem.”

“You always have something to tell me about.” Dan said, trying to pull himself back to gentle sarcasm. “What, you haven’t met any freaks or befriended a pigeon?” He rolled to sit up, leaning back against the wall, closing his eyes.

“Met a stray cat yesterday?”

“That works, where?”

“Just out in the street somewhere. I named him Gertrude, but then I guess he didn’t like being called Gertrude because he made me sneeze so much I had to leave.”

“Of course. Why Gertrude?”

“Dunno, he looked like a Gertrude. Reminded me of a grumpy old lady, you know, with the plastic flowers on their hats.”

“It’s a miracle you’ve made it this far, Phil,” Dan told him, and he could almost smile, imagining Phil kneeling in the street to stroke an ugly old cat, imagining him beaming and naming it after some old lady he knew. “You’re my favorite massive dork.”

Phil flew off into another anecdote, and Dan just listened, trying to hide his sniffling and pretending he hadn’t just been sobbing his eyes out. It helped, somehow, the comforting voice rambling on about nothing in particular, but then he caught a glimpse of his desk, the mess of papers and unfinished work, laptop screensaver glaring. “Phil?” he asked, interrupting, the word coming out squeaked and uneven, jarring even to his own ears.

“Yeah?”

“I don’t know.” The panic was seeping back up his throat, chest tight, hard to breathe, tears coming back. He couldn’t do it, couldn’t finish all that work, and he had to have that paper finished by Monday, and he had no idea what he was doing, and he was going to fail out of uni, and then what would happen? “I don’t know, just stay?”

“Yeah, ‘course I will. Dan, is there something going on?”

“Not new.” he said, kind of reluctant. “ ‘m being stupid.”

“Never.” Phil said, and Dan choked out a laugh that was mostly a sob, his eyes filling up again.

“ _God_  no, Phil, I’m always stupid.  _Fuck_. I don’t know why I’m taking this course. It’s hard and I’m stupid and lazy and useless. I’m going to fail, Phil, I can’t do three years of this. I can’t – I can’t do another week – of – ” And then he was sobbing brokenly again and trying to muffle it in his sleeve and holding the phone away from his face so Phil couldn’t hear.

“Dan – Dan,  _please_.” Phil was saying, and Dan brought the phone back to his ear. “I love you, you’re wonderful, you’re smart, you’re going to work it out.”

“Gonna have a fucking panic attack.”

“Figure of speech or real?”

Dan laughed through the irregular sobs, even though there was nothing funny. “I don’t know.”

“Okay.” Phil said, and there was the edge of nerves in his voice, and Dan hated himself for scaring Phil. Hated himself for everything. Inadequate, so inadequate. Couldn’t stop crying again, and he’d just calmed down, what had gone wrong? “Dan, it’s okay.”

He wanted to disagree, but couldn’t find the words or the air. Drowning, he thought, drowning.

“Dan,” Phil said again, “Dan, please,” and his voice cracked a little. “I’m not good at this, I wanna hold your hand. You’re gonna be fine, you’re gonna be fine, can you try and calm down a little?”

It took a while, but somehow he managed it, squeezing his eyes shut and trying to take deep breaths, crushing the blankets in his fist and concentrating with all his might on the buzz of the radiator and the cars outside, willing the panic down until the terror in his throat was melting back down into his stomach. It. Was. Okay. Hands sweaty and shaking as he adjusted the phone at his ear, too upset to think, let alone talk. He slumped sideways to curl into a miserable, tear-stained heap, rubbing at his sore eyes. “M’alright now,” he mumbled, making the effort for Phil’s sake. “I’m sorry, I’m sorry – ”

“Stop, don’t apologize – ”

“ ‘m sorry.” he whispered a last time, because it was late and Phil shouldn’t have to be dealing with this.

“It’s fine, it’s fine.”

Dan closed his eyes, trying to breath deeply, wiping feebly at his wet face with trembling fingers. “Feels like I got hit by a bus,” he said, words mumbled and indistinct because he was too tired to move his lips properly.

“I know.” Phil said softly. “I know. You gonna sleep, or what are you going to do?”

“Want a hug.” Dan said before thinking, because he did want a hug. Dull regret hit him a second later; it was impossible and unfair at one in the morning. He was lucky to have Phil in whatever capacity.

“Want to hug you,” Phil said, and his voice was a tinge unsteady. “If I got a cab out there, would you come home with me?”

Home.

“Fuck, please.” He let out a half-sob of relief. He couldn’t remember if it was against school policy, although to be honest it probably was, and he couldn’t remember where he was supposed to be in the morning, but he needed it, needed the company, needed Phil.

“Okay.” Dan listened as Phil exhaled, a long, shuddering, staticky breath. “Okay. I need to call them, do you want me to call you back after?”

“No,” Dan said after a second, “no, I’m fine, just text me when you’re getting close.”

“Okay.” There was a stillness, somehow calm and quiet and comfortable, long enough for Dan to pull in a few long breaths, feel a few more tears slip down his face. “Okay,” Phil said again, and Dan wondered how many times he’d said it that night. “Love you.”

Dan smiled slightly. “Love you. Thank you, thank you for – for everything. God.”

“Shh.”

Dan listened to the silence for a second, and then the dial tone, and then he took the phone away from his ear, lying still, phone held loosely in his hand. The room was empty and silent without Phil’s voice in his ear, a mausoleum, and there were the books that had started this whole mess, and he couldn’t stand just lying there and waiting. He stood, a little shaky on his feet, and found tissues, wiped at his wet face, shoving a couple in his hoodie pocket for later. He sat down on the bed and cried a little, weakly, because he was tired and miserable and he wanted to be warm and happy and he wanted to sleep, and then he made himself get up, and eventually he found his way out into the dark cold, wind stinging his eyes, shoes scuffing on the pavement. The city was still awake. It never really slept. He sat on a bench. Pulled his knees up to his chin, hugged his legs. Shivered. Sniffled. Waited. Petrol scent in the air and the screech of a siren somewhere far off. He wondered what Manchester would feel like at the end of the world. If it would be the same, late-autumn nights dark and cold, thick with the smell of petrol and back alleyways. This bench was quiet and lonely, but there was always the rush of the city, the throbbing veins beneath the streets. A shout a few blocks away. Some paper scuttled down the road.

He almost jumped when he felt his phone vibrate in his pocket (01:39  _hey I think I’m about five min away_ ). He mustered the strength for two characters,  _ok_ , and then slipped it away, pillowing his head on his knees and trying not to count the seconds. There was an emptiness about his chest, a lonely feeling between his shoulderblades, a lump in his throat. It wasn’t that he was hopelessly codependent, wasn’t that he couldn’t have gotten through the night alone if he’d had to, it was just that he wanted a hug, someone to stroke their hands down his back and mumble platitudes into his hair for as long as he needed them to. Just a presence, something there that was loving and comfortable, something to gently distract him from the misery and destruction raging through his head. It could have been his grandma, a friend in a pinch, but he wanted Phil. And he was getting Phil. And no matter how crap everything was right now, that was nice.

And then there was a car engine, and the ugly cab could have been a majestic warhorse and Phil, messy hair and glasses and clearly-just-pulled-on sweatshirt, was the knight in shining armor. Dan didn’t give Phil the chance to try and get out, just scrambled to the curb, pulling the door open and climbing in, crawling across the seat to immediately and shamelessly curl into Phil’s chest, burying his face in the place where his neck met his shoulder and breathing him in in short gaspy breaths.

“Hi,” Phil said, sounding relieved, like he hadn’t been expecting Dan to meet him outside, like he was in better shape than anticipated. Dan felt Phil’s warm arms secure themselves around him, one at his waist and one just below his shoulderblades. For a few short seconds, Phil was everything, the only thing in his head and the only thing that mattered outside it. Warm, welcoming, unbelievably welcome. A little glow of happiness ignited in his center, and he thought of a Charmander’s tail, the flame’s happy little waver.

“God, I’m happy to see you,” Dan mumbled into his neck, and Phil squeezed him a little in reply.

The cab driver coughed and Dan reluctantly retreated to the seat where he was supposed to be sitting, reaching out for Phil’s hand and letting their fingers tangle together, staring out the window and tuning out the world so he didn’t have to listen to Phil exchange awkward words with the mustached and ruddy-faced driver.  The cab started moving, and Dan inched over, leaning against Phil and closing his eyes. He wasn’t sure if he dozed off, but he at least drifted, things a drowsy, nonsensical blur. The car stopped, some vague amount of time in the future, and he realized he was slumped against Phil, sleepily clinging to him, and shifted away, embarrassed. Blinked a few times. Coughed. Everything was a little distant, like he was watching the world from behind a pane of rainy glass.

“C’mon.” Phil told him, and he roused himself.

“I’m awake.”

“Sure.” Phil’s smile was small and fond. In a stunning act of competent adulthood, he leaned forward to pay the driver, who nodded gruffly, and then reached over Dan’s lap to open the door.

“Could’ve done that.” Dan was more awake and also vaguely insulted.

“Yeah, yeah, go.”

He climbed out and shivered on the cold pavement, feeling the twinges of a headache starting at his temples, and decided with a sort of miserable determination that he wasn’t going to rely on Phil, wasn’t going to make him open cab doors and take care of him. The last thing he wanted was to be pathetic, he wasn’t going to be coddled. He was going to be stubbornly independent, enough so that he annoyed Phil, because he wasn’t this crying-whining-dependent child who shouldn’t have left home. He was fine on his own. And then Phil was taking his hand, gentle, and pulling him inside, gentle, and his resolve crumbled away like sandcastles into the sea. It didn’t fucking matter, because he could breathe easy for the first time in what seemed like forever, and he didn’t want to be independent. He wanted to be in the mood where everything Phil said made him laugh and blush and he felt special and loved and lucky. And he’d be damned if he was going to let his stubborn streak stop him from being happy.

“Want me to carry you up the stairs like a bride?” Phil asked, and Dan giggled and felt more godforsaken tears welling up in his eyes, because he wasn’t sure that Phil wasn’t serious.

“Think I can manage.”

“Dan, you’re not crying again, are you?” His voice was sharp with worry.

Dan was. He was also laughing. He wasn’t really sure what emotion was winning. “Nope.” And Phil rolled his eyes in defeat and tugged him up the stairs and dropped the key when he was trying to unlock his door and then had trouble when the lock stuck and then called himself a Phil-fail while Dan laughed at him and tried to stop crying.

“Phil, you’re a loser,” he told him lightly when the door was shut, because he knew he looked like hell, eyes and face all swollen up with tears, and he wanted him to stop worrying. He left Phil to set the key down somewhere where he’d inevitably lose it and flopped onto the sofa, curling into the corner and glancing around the familiar setting. There was a half-full cup of cold coffee on the floor, and an open book draped spine-up over the arm of the sofa, and some clean laundry at the end of the sofa, partly folded. Domestic. Wonderful. Dan absently reached over and closed the book properly, because yeah, Phil would be irritated when he realized Dan’d lost his place, but that was preferable to the book ending up with a broken spine. He considered getting Phil bookmarks for Christmas.

“Shut up, I’m hopefully your favorite boyfriend.”

“It’s possible,” Dan told him, kicking the laundry onto the floor so Phil could join him.

“Shut up.” Phil said again, falling onto the sofa next to him. “You okay?” he asked, softer, reaching out to absently adjust Dan’s fringe.

“Yeah,” Dan said. He wrinkled his nose at the touch, and Phil retracted his hand. “M’alright, really.”

“Do you wanna just go to bed, or what?”

Dan considered. He did want to go to bed, because he was achingly tired and he wanted to forget about everything he would have to deal with tomorrow, but he could feel the insomniac poison seeping at him, could already see himself agonizing over everything instead of sleeping. He needed a distraction, needed something to keep him occupied until he drove himself into the ground and fell asleep right then and there. “I think I wanna have a shower.” he said after a second. “Would that be okay?”

“Yeah, of course. Chez moi est chez toi, or whatever.”

“What if I wanted you to come with me?” Dan asked, purposely brash so he wouldn’t back out. It was easy to be forward. Or at least easier than being reluctant.

Phil laughed. “Okay, you utter nerd. You could have just asked.”

Dan winced at the noise but leaned forward into his chest, forehead bumping somewhere just below the collarbone. “Don’t laugh at me.”

“Sorry.” He sounded genuinely sorry, a tentative hand touching Dan’s shoulder.

“S’alright.” He mumbled something unintelligible into the cloth of Phil’s shirt, plucking at the hem. “Take your clothes off?”

“You asking for – ?”

“No,” Dan said, because he wasn’t.

“Okay, go on then.”

And it didn’t matter how many times they’d done it before, it was still shy and giggly when they undressed in the cold bathroom and piled their clothes up on the floor, and it still took Dan’s breath away in the best possible way when he saw Phil, beautiful like nothing else in the world. And then it took his breath away again, red flushing into his face, when he realized that Phil’s eyes were fixed on him in the same way. Like he was the prettiest thing in the world. And that was strange and wonderful.

“Stop looking at me,” Dan muttered when he couldn’t stand it anymore, bringing his hands up to cover his face and ducking into the shower.

“But you’re  _pretty_ , and somehow you’re in  _my_  shower and not someone else’s.” Phil was following him, eyes and tone almost a plea, arms fixing around Dan’s waist.

“Sappy git.” Dan managed, and kissed him for the first time that night, just because his lips were too close to resist. It was soft, sweet, lingering, and it made Dan’s heart jump and his stomach flutter in the most beautifully cliché way. He only let it happen for a few golden seconds before blindly groping behind him, searching the slick, cold tiles, and then he’d found the tap, and freezing water was exploding down on both of them. Phil was shrieking in shock and stumbling back, and Dan was choking and then giggling and then laughing his real laugh, hysterically hyena-like and finally about something funny.

“ _Dan!_ ”

And Dan was still laughing, laughing his way back to feeling halfway normal. His chest was lighter, more open, and his eyes and face still hurt from the crying but at least he was smiling.

“ _Dan,_ ” Phil said again, and Dan hugged him tightly, giggling uncontrollably into his shoulder. The water was warming up, getting too hot, and Phil hooked one arm around Dan’s waist and maneuvered them around to adjust the temperature.

“I feel loads better,” Dan said after a while, nuzzling closer even though they were noticeably lacking in clothes.

“Laughing’s supposed to be good for your health.” Phil told him, squeezing him a little. It was subtle, gentle, but it made Dan feel  _safe_. He didn’t feel like a burden when Phil held him like that, didn’t feel guilty and annoying when Phil pressed his face into Dan’s wet, curling hair. It all felt  _right_ , and it was burying for the moment everything else that felt wrong.

Somehow it all ended up with Dan dozing off against Phil’s chest, water streaming over his face and narrowly missing his open mouth. He was gently shaken back to reality, duly giggled at, and shepherded out into an arctic bathroom and a towel that smelled of Phil’s soap. “Isn’t my fault.” he insisted grumpily, shivering and hugging the towel to him, noting in the fogged-up mirror that his hair was an apocalypse of curls. “You were the one washing my hair and then playing with it for twenty minutes.”

Phil was still giggling at him. “Not my fault your hair goes cute and curly and you close your eyes and hum when I play with it.”

“ ‘s cold.” Dan said, because it was the only thing he could find it in him to say. “ ‘s cold and I want cuddles and I wanna go back to sleep.”

“You need clothes ‘s what you need.” Phil told him. “Although you could just stand there naked and drip water on the floor if that’s how you want to stay warm.”

“Fuck off, fuck you.” Dan rubbed at his eyes, petulant and shivering like an overgrown toddler. “Love you though.” he added, as if to make up for it, and did his best pleading eyes.

“I’m not your mum, don’t pout at me like that,” Phil was sliding his glasses on, expression attempting to imply mature-adult-who-doesn’t-relent-to-pleading, but he quickly relented and pressed a kiss to Dan’s cheekbone. Dan felt himself blush, but tried regal sarcasm.

“I generally don’t tell my mum to fuck off.”

“Oh, but it’s good enough for your boyfriend?”

“Said I loved you.”

“Love you too. There’s enough of your clothes here, what do you want?”

“Don’t, want yours.” And he went red directly after, because he wasn’t sure if he should have said that. They wore each other’s clothes  _all the time_ , Dan stealing them casually from Phil’s drawers, Phil picking up Dan’s forgotten t-shirts and putting them in with his laundry and wearing them when they came round again, but it was always a completely tacit thing, secret and special and silent. It was a possessiveness thing, maybe, an acknowledgment of how close they were, something for them to have of each other when they were apart, a stupid hey-look-world-he’s-my-boyfriend thing – it was a lot of things, but the one thing it wasn’t was a thing that they talked about. Dan wished he could take it back, instantly afraid that it would make it something clumsy and forced instead of sweet and casual. But Phil just giggled for a countless time like it was the only way to express whatever emotion he was feeling.

“Cutie.” he said, and took Dan’s hand and squeezed it, and pulled him into his bedroom and flung some clothes as him.

And Dan got his cuddles, curled tightly into Phil’s arms like Phil was a suit of armor to protect him from everything. Safe. Safe and warm and loved and in love.

“You should move in next year,” Phil mumbled into his hair.

“Mm, yeah, please,” Dan murmured back, too tired to get his mouth to move right. “Then you can be there for all my university breakdowns.”

“Mm hm. Well, I was thinking more. You know. It’d be like home. Us.”

“Chez nous.” Dan said, not sure where it came from.

It seemed right.


End file.
